Extra marital affairs have never been uncommon. While it is unfortunate that infidelity comes about and shakes an otherwise stable marriage, the fact that it has been prevalent in all sections of societies around the world, adds a sense of disquiet amongst couples. However, we do not bother ourselves with affairs that do not concern us. Nevertheless, there have been numerous extra marital escapades between people of repute and those in high offices that have intrigued us in some degrees. All such liaisons, irrespective of the reasons they develop, are outrageously scandalous, shameful, and unacceptable. They get the world speaking of the unspeakable. Even as, each such affair sets a deterrent example there are a few, very few, from which the society in particular, and a generation at large draws a cautionary note. Such is the fallout of the recent scandal between the CIA chief David Petreaus and his biographer, Paula Broadwell.
As news of the David Petreaus-Paula Broadwell affair cascaded down the media, my gut reaction, like that of countless others was to see what wife Holly Petreaus looked like. While reasons for the liaison could have reasonably varied, a diatribe against an ageing wife who looked more like a 'grandmother' to her rather ‘tanned, taut' husband, flocked the cyberspace. Going by pictures and videos, one couldn't agree anymore that the general's romping with a woman twenty years his junior was plainly inevitable, given the fact that she is every bit of a head turner as opposed to his unadorned, plain Jane wife of thirty eight years. "I'd have done the same thing," said a commentator on CNN's website. The media have raved and ranted enough over the affair, especially why Holly Petreaus did not seek to make herself any ‘lovelier’. Interestingly, public opinion too, has held wife Holly’s physical appearance as a contributory factor in her husband’s straying. Hence, the question that arises uppermost in one’s mind is whether beauty is the salient weapon a woman needs to keep her husband hooked.
While popular press confirms that the wife of the ‘philandering general’ has been the rock on which he has relied in a preoccupying career, Holly Petreaus's personal pain comes more as a threat every woman faces as she ages alongside her still winsome husband, who spends more time at work with a luminously beautiful woman. Enough reasons for Cupid to strike its arrow. Enough reasons for bio chemistry to get working between the beguiling nymph and the suave commander who certainly loves his homely, not-much-to-look-at wife of nearly four decades, and one who has been the bedrock of his success, but who fails to set his libido humming the way the new woman does. Sin of sacrilege? Well, for a while, let’s keep moral issues aside, and talk about a wife who, cloaked in the security of a ‘seemingly’ rock solid marriage, finds it immaterial to bow down to the standards of vanity and cosmetic beauty, and consequently allows herself to let go. She has other meaningful issues and pressing concerns to dwell on, especially with her husband’s absorbing career that she has all the while supported firmly. How well do her efforts pay? Furthermore, why is she held virtually responsible in tainting her own marriage?
Very often the man in the street inevitably draws subtle hints and inferences out of such a national scandal. Here, one discovers an ageless monster that raises its grisly head, and reminds every woman that an age old marriage in no way guarantees a lifetime of her husband's loyalty to her. A blaring reality emerges: no matter how accomplished and successful a woman is, she plunges to her downfall with greater rapidness if she fails to conform to the conventional standards of physical attractiveness. A scribe on a popular news website was of the opinion that Holly Petreuas' "entire demeanor, her hair, no makeup, her frumpy clothes, seem to scream to her husband and others ... I don't care!”-Chicago Tribune. Funnily enough, if a beautiful woman is betrayed, numerous other reasons surface for the betrayal, and all do indisputably agree that beauty is just insignificant to keep a marriage intact. In Holly's case ironically, it is this insignificance that has gained significance, and forces women to agree to the time honored allegory, that it is beauty with which she can harness her beast. Needless to say, a personal tragedy between three individuals who the world did not know until yesterday, has not just suddenly won a viral empathy, but has come to undo the perception that 'beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder'.
Leo Tolstoy had said, “It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness”. This has forever been a universally accepted truth. Coco Chanel, the French fashion designer and founder of the Chanel fashion brand, contrastively opined, “A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.” So even as Paula Broadwell is tailor made for the Chanel school of beauty, Holly Petreaus firmly supports Tolstoy. As the recent CIA scuttlebutt unfolded in generous doses, with pictures of the two women in their respective aura, all that clamor for a nick here and a tuck there, a Botox up and a silicone in has suddenly come to fuel ordinary women's minds like never before. The fact that women take extraordinary efforts to look physically attractive confirms that societies focus largely on physical appearances.
Physical beauty is a unique "combination of social consensus and genetic fitness". This is where the world associates the alluring Broadwell, the then tantalizing Monica Lewinsky and the ultimate sex symbol for generations, Marilyn Monroe. There is a tug of war that has surfaced in people's minds with Broadwell's beauty and brains, and Holly P's brains and her unflinching support to her husband, sans beauty. What turns out is that Holly Petreaus' plight has suddenly become every ageing woman's nightmare. Years ago Hillary Clinton suffered the same blow when Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky hit the headlines. Each time a less glamorous wife loses out to her sexier counterpart it is plainly inferred that her fading beauty or none thereof, works to her disadvantage. It becomes analogous, therefore, that just as one needs to perform consistently to keep one's job, a woman tirelessly, endlessly needs to enhance her looks, apart from all her other attributes, to keep her marriage. While there certainly is a LOT MORE than mere physical attractiveness that brings a man and a woman mistakenly together, what is it that leads us to the fearful conclusion that beauty is a predominant, if not the only factor in contributing to infidelity?
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